Good news everyone: Hell has booze. We can all relax. Boozing in the abyss, as it happens, is also the subject of Oxenfree developer Night School Studio’s next game. Afterparty follows the afterlife of best friends Milo and Lola who, just as they’re preparing for the world outside college, die, finding themselves stuck in Hell with no idea what they did to end up there. And the only way out? Outdrink Satan himself.
Like Oxenfree, it’s a narrative adventure where you control more than one character, but it looks like the similarities end there. Milo and Lola’s goal is to get into Satan’s fancy afterparty, sending them on a pub crawl throughout an underworld melting pot that draws on religions from all over the world.
It sounds like a hoot, frankly, and the type of Hell I can get behind. When the pair enter a bar, they can chat away to its patrons, embarrass everyone with some karaoke and, obviously, get sloshed. Since this is a boozy game, your poison of choice will have some additional consequences, possibly imbuing Milo or Lola with courage or lower their inhibitions.
Afterparty seems like it will lean more towards experimenting and trying your luck than the tighter, more linear narrative found in Oxenfree, but Night School Studio is keeping shtum about a lot of the details, and so far all we’ve got is some concept art to tide us over until the game is properly shown off. It’s due out in 2019.
Cheers, IGN.
